


sing to me

by salamoonder



Series: bread, salt, wine [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:02:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28643403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salamoonder/pseuds/salamoonder
Summary: “I’m sorry,” Vax whispers again. “We’ll figure something out. We always do.”
Relationships: Vax'ildan & Vex'ahlia (Critical Role)
Series: bread, salt, wine [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2073270
Kudos: 22





	sing to me

**Author's Note:**

> short one this time. this is set much earlier in the timeline than the previous two.

Vex is lying awake, staring at the ceiling, not realizing that she’s crying until a tear slips into her ear. She’s far too tired to not be asleep, and yet here she is.

Staring at the cracked ceiling. Tracing it over and over again, making animals and clouds and words out of it, fantasy creatures and poetry. After a while her imaginary shapes change pathetically to everyday things--groceries. Fresh fruit. Cleaning supplies. Bills, signed and paid. She’s not even trying to trace the cracks anymore, just unfocusing her eyes and letting the swim of tears and the haze in her mind create the images for her. She’s hilariously, depressingly fixated on raspberries--on the fact that she could probably buy two boxes of cereal and a jar of peanut butter for the price of one box, that they seemed to spoil from the moment they were touched.

“Hey, Stubby.”

She hadn’t heard him open the door--hadn’t even heard him (or seen him) walk over to her bed--but she’s not startled. Sometimes, not always but  _ sometimes, _ she thinks she can feel her twin’s location. Not with any specificity but like a distant hum, like the tug in her heart that always knows which direction north is.

“Hi,” she whispers, trying to clear her voice enough to cover the waver and failing.

Vax pulls up the comforter at the side of her bed, wiggling his way in next to her in a manner not unlike Trinket. She feels a sob catch in her throat at the thought of her dog, and at the same moment Vax’s fingers are in her hair, gently tugging her braid out and nudging Vex’s head a little to the side to begin rebraiding it.

“Look, sis,” he says, voice barely audible, “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this. You...you keep me afloat. You keep  _ us _ afloat, and I don’t know how to equal that.”

Vex wants to reassure him that he  _ does _ equal everything she does for the two of them, that there’s nothing either of them could have done about this, that everything will be fine--but she can’t, not quite. The words keep catching in her throat.

“I’m sorry,” Vax whispers again. “We’ll figure something out. We always do.”


End file.
